The Patio Dress by Gertie

Oh Hi! I’m just dancing in my new dress.

As sewists, we often see things out in the world and say to ourselves, (or out loud) “I can make that”! And, then we go home and usually do. Whether it takes a year or five is not the point. Ha! Rewind to last year when I went to Viva Las Vegas and saw beautiful vintage patio dresses. They were all priced waaay out of my budget, so I said to my husband, “I can make one. And, it’ll actually fit”. Vintage sizes aren’t always accommodating to me.

I already had the pattern. All I needed was the fabric. Oh, and trim. Lots and lots of trim!

I was gifted the absolute perfect fabric for a patio dress, so let’s dive in.

I wrote down a sketch of how much fabric I would need. It reminds me of a tiered wedding cake.

I was contacted by Fabric Wholesale Direct for a collaboration. I picked out the fabric, and they sent it to me in exchange for a blog post. That’s a win-win in my book!

I immediately thought of sewing the patio dress because it was fresh in my mind. I asked for 5 yards of shirting in a coral color. I’ve seen a few people make the dress out of heavier fabrics and I knew I wanted something very lightweight. Shirting was the perfect choice! The color is gorgeous too! Exactly what I wanted.

Let’s get to sewing a patio dress.

Gather your tracing tools. Rulers, markers, a pencil, and your favorite paper. I used medical paper this time.

I originally wanted to go with a Western theme, fringe everywhere, and then decided I wanted Ric Rac instead. So, make sure you choose the direction you want for your dress before you go trim shopping. I’ll use the fringe for something else, I’m sure. Eventually.

What You’ll Need

• At least 4.5 yards of fabric, I cut a size 12, short sleeve version, and had leftover fabric.

• Gertie Sews Jiffy Dresses book, by Gertie

• Matching thread

• 22” ish zipper. I say “ish” because I used a shorter one I had on hand and it worked just fine.

• Trim. Yards and yards of trim. I used 20.

• Sewing machine

• Serger. Not necessary, but it is nice if you have one.

• The usual sewing notions

• Interfacing

• Tools for tracing off your pattern: paper, pencils, ruler, weights, etc.

• A ruffler foot. This is reeaaally nice to have.

I bought all the pretty colors from JoAnn. Luckily, they were on sale. 

The Bodice

Start by washing your fabric. This is always step one.

Trace your pattern from pattern page 5 in the book envelope. I used medical paper, fun markers, and a ruler to trace the straight lines.

Cut out your new pattern pieces. I use a small rotary cutter for this. I never used it for anything else, so it’s my pattern paper cutter.

Transfer all markings to your fabric. Then, cut out your fabric.

I like to apply the interfacing now, to get it done and over with.

Serge the vertical edges if you’d like. The shirting fabric I used wasn’t too bad at fraying, but the serger keeps the edges nice and clean.

Stay stitch your neckline, both front and back. This is an important step, especially for this lightweight fabric. You don’t want to stretch out the neckline while you're sewing rows and rows of trim.

Gather your trim. Originally I thought I could start sewing the dress first and worry about trim later. Nope, that’s not the case. The trim goes on the bodice in step number one.

I rummaged through bags of what I had on hand and started with those colors. I liked how they looked with the coral fabric, so I stuck with a fun color palette. It was deemed my Candyland dress.

I was surprised that I didn’t need to add interfacing to the back of the fabric considering the amount of Ric Rac I added. But, this fabric held up just fine.

Place the trim along the lines. I snipped into my seam allowance to mark those spots. 

Play with your different trims. Use ribbon, pom poms, and/or ric rac. Move them around to decide on the layout you love.

Pin everything in place and sew.

Go slowly, pulling out your pins one by one. I just eyeballed the seam line and kept it in the middle as best as I could.

Repeat on the other side. If you transferred your markings correctly, they should meet up in the center perfectly. Mine met up, but the nature of ric rac looked wonky. I decided I didn’t mind and kept it as-is.

Ta-da!

Sew your darts in the bodice pieces before you sew the center front seam.

Now it’s time for the collar.

The collar was easy enough, thankfully.

Below is a 1,2,3 of which direction the sew the collar and facing together. 

Start at the top out edge, sew along the top to the corner, then down. Clip corners and turn out. 

After that, you’re going to sew the collar to the bodice neck, at the back.

So far, so good. We’re moving right along.

Overlap the back collar. Mine didn’t really overlap, but I made it work. 

Sew the neck facing.

This is easy-peasy. Pin in place and sew.

The collar should look like this. Sorry for the blurry photo, womp-womp.

Next, sew the side seams and back seam down to the marked area. The zipper will go here, eventually.

Start stitching from the waistline and go up to the arm opening.

Sew the short ends of the sleeve facings. 

I chose to make the short-sleeved version of The Patio Dress. Sew the short ends together, and press open.

The long-sleeved version will be different.

1. The sleeve facing didn’t line up perfectly with the sleeve opening. I don’t know if I did something wrong, or if the pattern was wrong.

2. I marked where the correct seam needed to be and sewed a new seam.

3. It matched up perfectly. Yay!

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The Skirt

Buckle your seatbelts, this part is a doozy.

In her book, she guides you on how to measure the skirt tiers. I followed what Gertie did.

• Measure your waist. Write it down. Double it. This will be your first tier.

• Then, double that measurement to create your second tier.

• Then, double that for your third tier.

Easy enough, right?

Okay, she does some math to get the height of the tier, in the end, she makes them 10” tall. I did exactly that.

For example: The top tier will measure 60” long by 10” tall, for a 30” waist. Then, the second tier will measure 120” long by 10” tall, and so on.

I folded my fabric in half, selvage to selvage.

Measured 10” from the bottom edge and marked it. I ended up cutting 9 strips. My fabric was 56” wide. So keep in mind how wide your fabric is.

I serged the short edges together to form one super duper long strip for gathering.

My advice for this next part? Put on headphones and play a podcast or fun music. This is going to take a while.

The ruffler foot. It looks scary, but it’s easy to use once you get the hang of it.

To make sure the ruffler foot works out for this pattern, Gertie has you grab a piece of fabric that measures 10” long. Insert the ruffler foot, and change the settings until it gathers the fabric to 5” long. Basically, half the amount.

My foot was set on 6.

Now it’s peanut butter, ruffle time! If you don’t get the reference, sorry. Random songs live rent free in my head.

Afterwards, you’ll have a huge pile of ruffles.

Whew! It takes a minute, doesn’t it?

Grab an end and start measuring. You want the first tier to be the length of your waist. Measure, then snip into the mark and rip the fabric to get an even edge. Or, just cut through.

Next, you’re going to pin and sew the top tier to the bodice.

Pin those riffles in place from one back bodice opening to the next. Sew. 

Oooh, it’s looking like a peplum shirt now. Yuck!

Next, you’ll add the second tier. Pin to the top tier raw edge, then sew. And repeat with the last tier.

Time to Trim the Dress

Gather your trims and start pinning at the seamline. Gertie said to start above the seam, but, I liked covering it up a little. Choose your own adventure here. 

Pin all the rows at once and then sew. Or, pin each row and sew. It’s completely upto you.

Pinned ric rac before sewing.

A little word of advice: Pin the trims on and try on the dress. I found that I didn’t like the blue because it clashed with my teal trim on the bodice.

Time to bust out the seam ripper. Boooo!!

I turned on a show and ripped out all the blue. Face-palm. Wasn’t a fan of the shade.

And, the green looks much better. 

Overlapped rick rack with a drop or two of Fray check. 

If you use packages of trim, you’ll need to overlap it. Line up the edges as well as you can and use Fray check to keep it from unraveling.

Next up is the zipper. The pattern calls for a 22” zipper, but I only had an 18” on hand. I made it work. You’ll sew a lapped zipper.

The zipper is in the middle of the back seam. I don’t think I’ve done this before, it was fun doing something new. It was easy too.

You’re almost finished. The hem is next! Yay!!

Make a narrow hem.

I serged the raw edge, then turned it under, and under again to create a nice narrow hem. Use your iron to steam it into position. Pin and sew.

And, you’re done! Throw some flowers in your hair and dance the night (or day) away.

Back of the fun dress. It’s a little baggy and long in the torso. Ah well. 

Thoughts:

• I thought this dress would be difficult to make but, it was pretty easy.

• It was somewhat of a fabric hog, but not as bad as I anticipated. I used about 4.25 yards of fabric. If I were to sew the long-sleeved version, I would have used the full 5 yards.

• The fabric really understood the assignment! I didn’t have a single issue. With all the weight of the ric rac, the fabric held up. And, it’s the perfect weight for the many tiers. I would use this fabric again. Oh, and wearing it is comfy too. It feels like a nightgown. The fabric is a little see-through, but I wore skin-colored underthings. No issues.

• I didn’t make a muslin because it has kimono sleeves. They usually seem to be more forgiving for the larger bust gals like me.

• I would have made a smaller size. the 12 fits, but it’s a little baggy as you can see in the photos. Size 10 for me, for next time.

• I wish it had pockets! I assume they could be easily added.

• I should have done a short waist adjustment. Whoops! I do them for everything, usually. But, the pattern either didn’t have it marked or I was abducted by aliens during the pattern tracing part.

That’s it. I hope you liked following along. I sure enjoyed making it. If I were to count how many hours it took from start to finish, I’d say around 18 hours.

What do you think? Is there a Patio Dress in your near future? I’m packing it for Viva 2025 for sure!

Happy sewing,

Annette

Wearing my Patio dress by Gertie.

All photos taken by Annette Marie Photography. aka me ;)

Simplicity 8654 Vintage-Style Shorts

Summer is here, and do you know what that means? It's time to tackle your warm-weather vintage sewing patterns. The weather has been cooler lately, but shorts are still a necessity. The Simplicity vintage-style pattern 8654 is a perfect summer sewing pattern. It has swooshy shorts, a cute top, and a fun skirt. I chose to sew the shorts. I have a pair of RTW shorts that are similar, but no longer fit. So, I decided to make my own. The shorts have minimal pattern pieces (4) and take about 2 yards of fabric, more or less depending on your size. Let's get started!

Cut + Trace

​
Find your size on the pattern. The style is very forgiving in the hips, so I went with my waist measurement only.

Cut the pattern or trace it onto paper. Transfer all your markings. This is especially important for the pleats. 

​Cut out the fabric pieces and interface your waistband. 

Sew, sew, sew!

Match the front pieces together. Pin and sew along the curve. 

Sew the inseam curve.

Fold the pleats, matching the marked lines, and sew. Do this with both of the front pieces. Then, repeat the same steps for the back pieces. The pattern instructions were fairly easy for these shorts. No issues to write home (or you) about.

Mark and sew your pleats. The marking is the most important part.

Topstitch the pleats in place.

Your pleats should look like the ones above. Topstitch after you sew them to keep them secure. 

Flip over the shorts, and there will be two rows of stitching, like the photo below. So far, pretty easy, right?

After top stitching, you will have 2 rows of stitching. the inside will look like this.

Grab your two pocket pieces. Sew along the edges on a front piece and again on a back piece. This pattern only has one pocket because of the side zipper. If you're feeling brave, you could easily add a second side pocket and insert the zipper in the back seam instead.

Sewing is all about customization. :D

I didn't love how they had you sew the pocket. But, note to self, next time sew it up how I would regularly sew an inseam pocket.

Follow the pattern instructions to sew the inseam pocket.

This pattern only has 1 pocket.

Zipper time! This pattern calls for a lapped zipper, which is a true vintage-style zipper. I am somewhat new to the lapped zipper, as I've only been sewing them for 2 or so years. I'm a huge fan! They take minimal effort and go in pretty easily, with a few tips and tricks. 

I use a strip of 1" interfacing for all of my zippers. It helps stiffen up the fabric, and the zipper looks nicer after it is sewn in. 

Press the right side under 1/2". Pin the fabric right next to the zipper teeth. Sew, using a zipper foot. 

Then, press the left side under 5/8". I close the zipper and pin the fabric to the zipper tape. Be sure to barely cover the right side stitches. Unzip, then sew.

Inserting a lapped zipper.

Left side of the zipper. This will be the underlap.

Topstitch the lapped zipper. These are so nice to sew and look nice too.

​Time for some waistband action. I sewed a straight size 18 for the shorts and used the size 18 waistband pattern piece, but the waistband was too short. So, I added an extra piece of fabric to ensure the waist band was long enough. I've noticed with a lot of patterns that the waistband always falls short of the skirt, shorts, or pants. ?? Maybe I'm broken, but does this happen to you?

It was an easy fix, luckily. Just make a note of it when you make these shorts. 

Pin and sew the waistband to the shorts, making sure to match notches and seams.

Had to add extra fabric to the waistband. Nobody will notice.

After sewing the waistband to the shorts, flip the raw edge over to enclose the raw edges of the shorts. The band will enclose them. 

Pin from the outside, right along the seam line, catching the inner fold with the pins. This is my most favorite way of sewing a waistband. It goes quickly and has a clean finish. 

Fold over edge, pin, then sew.

Pin around whole waistband.

Finished waistband.

Time to hem your new shorts. You can turn the raw edge under 1/4" and then under again, as the pattern instructions say. Or, serge the raw edge, and turn under once, and sew. I prefer to do it this way most of the time. It is quick and easy, and is great for pants or shorts. 

Hem the shorts. Turn under and under again. I serged the edge.

Add a label in the back of the shorts. The front looks very similar to the back, so this little addition helps when it's time to get dressed. If you don't have labels, add a fun piece of grosgrain ribbon. 

Add a cute label.

Don't forget to add your buttonhole and button. I opted for a fun contrasting pink one. I love my colorful coral zipper too. It mostly matches. Ha! 

End Thoughts

The shorts fit great! I went down a size in my waist because I know the big 4 patterns usually add a lot of ease. My waist is 33-34", and I sewed the size that had a 32" waist. They fit perfectly and have a little wiggle room. The fabric I used is a rayon challis. In my experience, rayon shrinks over time with the first few washings. If it shrinks, I'm good. If not, I'm good. Either way, I'm happy with the size I chose.
The fabric is a Gertie designed fabric she used to have at Joann stores. It's almost a decade old. I made my first Rita Blouse with it. The leftover fabric was from the yardage I bought all that time ago. 
Funny enough, I did not have a top that matched my new shorts. Yes, I have black tops, but I wanted some color. I made a solid bright pink Rita to wear with them. I know, bizarre for me to sew solid fabrics. Because the shorts were so busy, I wanted some simplicity on top. 


Next time I make these shorts, I'm going to play with the pleats. I think I'll fold the fabric differently to give them a different look. Maybe a large box pleat? 

Thanks for following along. Now, go grab the pattern and get started on your summer sewing. 

Are you excited to make these shorts? Have you made them before? Would you make them again?

​Happy stitching,
Annette

Gardner Top by Gertie

The holidays call for fancy fabrics and sequins. Don't you agree? There's just something fun about wearing sparkle during the festive month of December, isn't there? Add soft velvet and, I'm in! If sewing velvet scares you, read this post. I share my sewing machine and tips for tackling tricky fabric.
These Gardner tops fulfilled my fancy holiday fabric needs. The fabric was originally for vintage-style turbans. I've wanted to make velvet ones for quite some time. I only had 1 yard of each and was lucky that the one yard worked out. Whew! I changed direction at some point and decided to make Gardner tops instead. The matching sequin fabric went with the red one, and the sheer floral went with the green one. 

As usual, I don't go into depth with Gertie's Patreon patterns because I value her as a creator. However, I like to share tips and photos that show you my process along the way. If you're interested in this pattern, join her Patreon membership. She shares new patterns each month and so much more! 
I made one Gardner top following the exact directions and another collar-hacked version. This post is full of photos. Let's go!

Red Gardner Top (Original Pattern Version)

Red Garner Top

Start your top by tracing the darts onto the front. I prefer old-school wax paper and a tracing wheel system for this part.

Dart legs should look like this.

Staystitch front, clip into seam at center.

Staystitch the front and back necklines. Sewing from the shoulder towards the center prevents the neckline from stretching out. Never skip this step.

After you sew up the darts, cut them open. If sewing your top with velvet, don't press the seam open.

Cut dart open.

The sheer fabric is full of glitter, sequins, and all the sparkles. Perfect for holiday festivities.

Yay, no puckers!

If you go slow while sewing and make sure your seams are clipped, you shouldn't get any puckers in the V-shaped front. If you do get puckers, unpick that section and re-sew.


Sew up the back sheer keyhole area. Use thread that blends in with your fabric or skin tone.

Attaching the back sheer piece onto the back bodice went smoothly. It felt easier to sew than the front. But, follow the same process.

Wah-la! I love how the sequin fabric looks with this red velvet. So festive and fun. Don't you agree?

Make sure you top stitch to keep all the layers flattened on the front and back. 

The Collar

The collar was easy to sew, but it was tricky with velvet. I used sew-in interfacing that worked nicely. It went in smoothly, but I had a hiccup when I made the green top. You'll see below how I went in another direction with it. 

I did a few hand stitches to keep the collar together. All in all, it worked, but I wouldn’t want to sew another velvet collar in the future.

The sleeves and hem were easy to finish. I love this pattern and see many more Gardner Tops in my future.

All that's left is to sew on the hook and eye at the keyhole. 

I love the fit. I could have gone down a size, but I didn't want it to be too tight. This was a wearable muslin, and you never know until you make it. I love it despite the semi-itchy sequin fabric. Haha

I wore the red one to ring in the New Year. It had just enough sparkle to make me me feel festive.

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Green Velvet Top (Hacked Collar Version)

I didn't intend this Gardner top to be different, but I tried to fuse interfacing strips on the collar, and it didn't work in the end. So, after ripping out the collar, I ended up with a collar band and button. I wanted to show up in case you had a collar issue or just wanted to do a collar band instead.

I traced both tops with my favorite chalk pen by Clover. 

Cut both tops with my rotary cutter and mat. This keeps the velvet from stretching out. 

Green Velvet Gardner

I only had 1/2 yard of the sheer fabric, so I had to change the direction of the print to fit this top. The front has the vines running horizontally while the back is going vertically. Nobody will notice unless I point it out. I wanted to show you just in case you run into this issue, too. ;)

Collar Band Hack

I shared on Instagram my collar flub but didn't take any photos with my camera. So, instead, you're only seeing the band option.

​I measured around the collar opening and cut a strip that same length plus 1" by 3" wide. 

I folded the raw short edge under, pinned the long raw edge to the sheer fabric, and sewed with a 1/4" seam allowance. 

Fold the other long edge over and under, then pin and stitch on top. Stitch from one end to the next, making sure to close up the folded side. I stuck a small hair elastic in one end, for the button loop. 

Hem the sleeves and bottom hem using a zigzag stitch after turning up once. 

I picked the sparkliest button I had in my big button jar. I wish it was gold but, it works well enough. 

What do you think? Do you like the original collar version or the hacked band version better? 

I can't decide if I love the sparkles and red velvet or the florals and green velvet better. They're both so beautiful and fun!

Don't you just love this top? My favorite part is how the sheer sits on the shoulder. It's flawless and so feminine. It's also fancy and comfy to wear. I love how quickly the band came together, where as the collar took a little more time. But, I do love both versions.
Thanks for hanging with me today. Go join her Pattern and get this beautiful pattern along with tons of others. 

Happy sewing and happier pattern hacking,
​Annette